FMP: Colour Correction

During the editing process and having taken ideas from the test footage that was shot we have all come to the conclusion that we need to colour grade the shots to match the mood and tone of the film which is a cold and often emotionless feel. Colour grading and correction can be the most iconic thing about a film as you can take average looking footage and make it stand out enhancing the visual experience. Colour grading and correction falls into the hands of the editor and therefore it is essential that an editor knows what and how to do this.

Colour Grading
‘This is the creative process where decisions are made to further enhance or establish a new visual tone to the project through software including: introducing new color themes, re-lighting within a frame, films stock emulations, color gradients and a slew of other choices. Being that this is purely creative, there is no wrong or right…only what the DP, director and colorist feel is appropriate for the story. It can be subtle and invisible or over-the-top and uber-stylized.’

Colour Correction
‘This is the process where every clip is manually tweaked to get a good exposure and balance of light. Each clip is adjusted to match color temperature to a predefined choice for each scene. This tedious and mechanical process is essential and in its own way, an art form. The use of SCOPES (Waveform, Vectroscope, Parade) is critical to this step and luckily most NLE’s and Grading software have them built-in. Without them you are literally flying blind and solely trusting your eyes, which have to adjust to room light ambience, fatigue, funky monitors and other factors constantly. Trust the SCOPES and let them guide you into accurate and creative decision making.’

Luckily enough not many of our shots needed colour correcting as when filming we made sure to keep to similar colour temperatures depending on what the tone and mood of the shot was, however, a few of them needed real work as when bought into the editing suite the lighting appeared to be off and look different to other shots. At the moment a lot of the images are quite flat and so we have agreed that not only do we need to grade the shots to the mood of the film, but to also make the images pop and stand out just like some of the disturbing audio that is featured alongside the images.

It is clear to see from these pictures what work has undergone in order to change the lighting and tone of the image, and our editor has been working hard to get it just right, matching other images with the right mood and tone counteracting the original image. We will be looking at this further experimenting with other ways to enhance the image and make it stand out even more so.